Who are Dolce and Namak?

Dolce and Namak are my two characters. If they didn't argue so much you could say they were sisters. As it is, their relationship is defined by the fact that they hardly ever see eye to eye. If you really twist my arm, I'll confess that they're not even individual characters, but rather opposite sides of my little brain (it's endless entertainment being in my head, there's always some debate going on). And because I can never decide which one of them is right, I give you both, you decide.

Dolce (Italian for “sweet” - because this name sort of chose me and now it's too late to change it) is the emotional fangirl. She knows a thing or two about Indian movies, she watches all the promos and listens to the music, she knows who choreographed and probably went through all the drama of what actor and actress has been roped in for what role since the movie was announced. But she's not very critical, and if you're a movie that looks pretty and you feature good dancing, you've already won her over from the previews stage. Especially if you're a movie starring one of her endless crushes, of which a detailed list would be provided were it not bottomless and ever changing.

Namak (Hindi for “salt” - because even the best home made sweets have a pinch of salt to make them great) as you may have already guessed is the critical one. Namak will probably start most of her sentences with either “Kya bakwaas!” (Hindi for something like "What's this BS?") or the simple version: “But...”. She's not a hater, and she's willing to watch any movie that Dolce gets excited about, but don't expect her to swallow plot holes, she's more likely to sumptuously chew on them and spit them out with aplomb. She watches movies with Western eyes, and every movie is like her first one, with everything good and sometimes everything bad that comes out of that.

You'll hear them bicker mostly about Hindi (Bollywood) movies, Telugu (Tollywood) action movies and a bit of Tamil movies (Kollywood), but who knows when I will start watching Bengali and Punjabi movies, so if it gets to that, just act surprised.

hey there! visiting ur blog for the first time today and absolutely loving it!!! :) am a die-hard movie buff and feel like i have found my soul-mate in you! lol!!!! coz im a lot like Dolce, completely crazy abt my crushes and a total masala movie buff...but at the same time a post grad in media studies somewhere tries to knock its way into my head with a lot of 'But's.....and my staple diet is hindi, telugu and tamil movies :) am telugu myself and studied in chennai for 3 yrs (Also worked in a tamil movie as an asst. director) so the love for all 3 languages... love the way you write and am so gonna follow this blog from hereon!

@ Sudie: I find Namak more interesting too, but I love Dolce for her mad fangirlness :) Glad you enjoyed it here!

@ Swati: you're Telugu? Yay! I know who to give a shout out to when I "desperately need" a Bunny interview translated ;) Happy to have another movie buff join in our conversations here, be they totally fangirly or relatively intellectual! Don't hesitate to pitch in with local knowledge, I will really appreciate it!

@ San: thank you :) Trying to keep my sanity for now, but will try to keep the blog up to par too ;)

I read from your "about the author" post that you like the views from the highest view points. Seeing that it reminded me of the "andrew sullivan" blogs every day's "view from window" posts (sent by readers from all around the world, strictly taken from their windows).The idea is to post the pics of the world as they see from their windows.

What a great idea! I just checked out the website and bookmarked it. Very neat, thanks for telling me about it. (And too bad I didn't know about it when I was staying in my previous apartment on the 21st floor of an uptown building... That would have made a nice submission ;)).

A very candid and a detailed review of Dhobi Ghaat. I liked it very much and I must confess that I got the link from the blog of the man himself...Aamir Khan !!! I also observed that our very own method actor replied and he's very right in saying so. I liked ur writing style...not to mention that it has already created excitement for DG. Pls carry on with this good work.- Abhinav

Thank you Abhinav! :) Haha, yes, Aamir replying on that post is still rather unbelievable for me :D Oh, and very happy to have helped create excitement for Dhobi Ghat. I think as long as they know what kind of movie to expect, no one can possibly be disappointed by this one! Can't wait for January! :) I hope you enjoy it when you see it!Thank you for stopping by with such a sweet comment!

Visited this blog for the first time today and must say, Awesomest writing and creativity.

Review on Dhobi Ghaat is really intresting.And going thru ur profile, got to know that U like Tollywood as well. so thanks, now i can check some real reviews on Telugu movies(Being a telgu and a Big fan of them)

Hey Raj, welcome!! It's always a thrill to have a new fan :) Thank you for the kind words! And very happy to have another Telugu speaker around, you never know when some horribly wrong subtitles need to be corrected by a native speaker :)

I'm afraid the Telugu content of this blog has gone down lately what with so many things to say about Bollywood these days, but there are a few exciting releases coming up, and quite the pile of DVDs to catch up to, so I'm pretty sure I'll be visiting the TFI scene soon enough. Plus a review of Indra is looong overdue! :)

Hey Mimi, welcome to my blog and very happy you like it! It may not be the best resource for the so-called classics, as my tastes are hardly ever in sync with the mainstream audiences, but given that you got here through AK's blog, maybe yours are not either? :) And don't worry, I'm still a newbie too, so still lots to go through for me as well. Check out some of the other blogs on my blog roll for more ideas on what to watch, there are some far more seasoned bloggers out there that have been a great resource for me too.See you around, Mimi!

About Me

You know that white girl that all the desis turn around to look at in a theatre playing Indian movies and then they proceed to talk quite loudly in Hindi about how she's probably lost? Yea, that's me every other week.
Beyond this very important detail, more about me on the About the Author page.